The Creative Connection

Social Media Team

Amy has always loved to create and spent her early years rearranging and decorating her bedroom frequently. Amy has continued to love to create things with her hands and shares her latest creations at her site The Idea Room, which was voted #6 in Babbles Best DIY Blogs for 2011.
 Amy is inspired by her husband and their 5 children. Amy also enjoys outdoor activities like camping, hiking, swimming and running to nowhere and back. Amy is also a former high school science teacher. Amy now spends her spare time teaching others how to create beautiful and fun items for their homes and families.

Social Media Team

Char Coester has a name that sounds like an amusement park ride. And, when life deals you that, you can do one of two things: laugh or go make something. Char does both and then writes about it at Crap I’ve Made. Her first loves are fabric and sewing (weird, considering she cried in a failed attempt to get her 9th grade sewing teacher to let her drop the class) but she also enjoys power tools and thrift shopping. Char has been married for 14 years to a guy who stalked her in college. They have 4 fabulous kids (11, 8, 5, and 3) who keep things interesting. And messy. They’re learning to live with Asperger’s and trying not to lose anyone. She hates pudding and hugging.

Minnesota Coordinator and Event Designer

Christine is a confirmed dabbler, and is now working under the title “at home expert.” After 10 years of retail merchandising and owning a vintage shop, Christine left the world of retail to focus on design. She has since worked with many home and shop owners, and as a designer for HGTV. Her own homes have been featured in Country Living magazine and on the DIY network show Sweat Equity. Always a big fan of reusing and recycling vintage objects, her time with the Creative Connection Event has also nurtured a newfound love of crafting. She spreads her love of pie baking and shares homemaking tips on her blog, Pies and Aprons.

Contact:
Blog: http://piesandaprons.blogspot.com
Email: christinechoffman@gmail.com

Elizabeth Maxson – Elizabeth House – Creative Entrepreneur

Elizabeth’s creative spirit has expressed itself in many forms her entire life, through many careers. It wasn’t until she became a Creative Entrepreneur and opened, Elizabeth House, a European Boutique, did her creative spirit really soar. In fact, it soared so greatly, that after five years of running a very busy boutique and design business, she closed her store and let her spirit soar onto other exciting adventures. Whether she is hired to photograph a cooking feature on a cattle ranch for Where Women Cook, interviewing and writing stories about French chefs for the soon-to-be out bookWhere Women Cook Celebrations, photographing creative paper wedding features, cooking up a batch of rustic mushroom soup for her barber husband, faux finishing a kitchen, designing custom bedding, or designing a set and styling for a photo shoot, she just happy to have such memorable adventures with very talented women. And of course, she gives all credit and thanks to Christ for all that she has and does.

Elizabeth resides and St. Louis, Missouri with her barber husband. But her creative spirit has no zip code.

Contact:
Web: www.elizabethhousestlouis.blogspot.com
email: elizabeth@elizabethhouseshoptalk.com

Social Media Team

Jen Hadfield is a mom of four and the founder/editor of Tatertots and Jello, plus a member of The CSI Project and Crafterminds. Jen’s main site, Tatertots & Jello is where family, DIY projects and home décor collide. The site features many guest post tutorials and fabulous finds, including cork board calendars, super-size subway art, and generous giveaways. Even the audience can get in on the fun – during Friday’s Weekly Wrap-Up Party, readers’ projects and ideas are highlighted!

Social Media Team

Kami Bigler runs the blog  NoBiggie – a montage of all her favorite things, including: crafting, cooking, and thrifting. Her interests include portrait and tabletop photography, paper crafts, decorating and experiencing the thrill of the thrift find. She graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Public Relations. She love to spend her non-blogging hours with her husband Kyle, their two children and one little puppy-faced dog. She also writes a weekly post for Baby Center’s blog Momformation and a monthly post at Make and Takes.

Social Media Team

Kari Sweeten is the owner and editor of Ucreate, a hobby blog which features the latest tutorials and trends from talented crafters around the world. She comes from a creative line of women and has been a “crafty gal” most of her life. Kari has been an entrepreneur since 2002 when she started a scrapbook-based business called Sisters By Design, LLC. with her sister, Becky. In 2008, Kari started a personal blog, Ucreate, as a way to collect ideas and tutorials to beautify her home and feed her “craft obsession” which she likes to call it. Fast forward three short years later, and you will find Ucreate as one of the largest hobby blogs on the web. She has since launched Ucreate with Kids, Ucreate Parties and also provides her readers with a free monthly craft club where they can create together using the same tutorial/pattern. Inspiring her readers to create and try new things by learning new skills and getting out of their comfort zones is her goal. Kari lives near Salt Lake City Utah with her husband, Michael and their four beautiful children.

You may know Kim Demmon from Today’s Creative Blog (TCB) for promoting the talents of creative women across the blogosphere. Today’s Creative Blog was voted #5 in Babbles Top 50 Mom Craft Blogs. TCB is your hub for inspiration on everything from decorating, kids crafts, sewing, to planning the perfect party. Almost daily, TCB features a new creative blog post to help women feel validated and empowered for talents that are too often viewed as simple. Kim lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, tween son, and their labradoodle, Maybelline. A chubby fitness professional by trade, a bargain-hunting decorator by hobby, Kim will take forever to finish decorating a room, avoiding the Mary Engelbreit coined “I’ll have what she’s having” style. You’ll enjoy Kim’s witty and relaxed nature as she shares in her next feature whatever tickles her fancy or catches her eye.

Contact:
Blog: www.todayscreativeblog.net
Twitter: @TCreativeBlogs
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TodaysCreativeBlog

Lisa Groen’s earliest writing flourished in personal journals and letters to friends. She feels fortunate that loved ones saw and nurtured those sparks of creativity at a young age. Lisa sees writing—and perhaps all fine arts—as a way of assimilating life experiences and allowing a wiser perspective to emerge from the page.

Lisa is the author of The Mother’s Book of Well-Being (Conari Press). She has an MFA in writing degree from Spalding University, where she studied fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in newspapers, popular and literary magazines, and on public radio. In addition to her creative work, Lisa feels privileged to nurture and encourage the creativity of others as an editor and writing coach. She especially likes working with aspiring authors, which led to the creation of her website, 
http://book-dreams.com.

Contact:
Web: http://book-dreams.com

Moderator-Working with a Sponsor: What does it mean and how do you find one?

Loralee is a wife, mother, and blogger living in the wilds of Utah. She is mother to 4 handsome gentlemen, aged 15, 12 and 2, and a sweet little 4-month-old that passed away in 2003 of SIDS. She has been blogging since 2005 at the blog, Loralee’s Looney Tunes and loves chirping on the internet as @looneytunes on Twitter. Throughout her years online she has formed a fabulous community, been a speaker at several national blogging conferences like BlogHer, Mom 2.0 and The Creative Connection Event, lectured and given workshops on social media and blogging, worked on major social media campaigns and events with brands like BlogHer, McDonald’s USA, The Gap, GE, Coke USA, Master Card and Universal Studios. Loralee has been featured on local and national media like KSL, UPR, National Talk Radio and Parents Magazine and has also had some unique and fabulous experiences like being a spokesperson for ChemDry, filming with The Pioneer Women at her ranch, interviewing Steve Carell and Julie Andrews, and going to The White House by personal invitation. Aside from her personal and social media brand, Loralee is thrilled to work as Director of Internet Operations for Where Women Cook and is creator of the Where Women Cook blog, Amuse Bouche.

She is also a classically trained opera singer that is well versed in tromping around on stage in corsets and playing men, alcoholics, witches, nuns, evil stepmothers and woman of ill repute.

Contact:
Web: www.loraleeslooneytunes.com
Twitter: @looneytunes